


Keys

by legends_saga



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: #majornjospoiler, Anakin Solo deserved the world, Anakin Solo is a cinnamon role, Grief, Mourning, author totally didn’t cry writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 04:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17933198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legends_saga/pseuds/legends_saga
Summary: Grief, they say, is the only thing in the galaxy that gets worse when it gets easier





	Keys

Han had no idea if he’d woken up, or just decided he wouldn’t find his sleep tonight, no matter how hard he tried. Either way, laying in bed just staring at the ceiling felt wrong.   
He slowly made his way first out of the bed, then out of the cabin, careful not to wake Leia. She’d been having a hard time falling asleep tonight, too, and Han wanted her to get the rest she most definitely needed.  
Ignoring the cold temperatures outside, he walked in foggy darkness to the hangar before finally saving himself in the warmth of the Falcon. After Chewie’s death, he’d avoided being on the ship as best as he possibly could. When he turned around, he could always see Chewie’s back towards him, storms of debris and fire whirling around the Wookiee. He could always see the emptiness on the copilots seat when he entered the cockpit, making him awfully aware that it’d never be occupied by his best friend again. The Falcon was a place loaded with so many memories, and it had taken Han quite a lot of time to appreciate them. To enjoy the glimpses of the good times rather than drowning in sorrow for what he’d lost. Slowly but steadily, it had become more of what it was before. Not a happy place - not entirely, not anymore - but a place he could enjoy being both and alone and in company in.   
He closed his eyes for a second, allowing all the feelings of good and bad nature to just flow into him. Han could almost hear the kids laughing in the back, jumping around when they thought he wasn’t watching. Leia leaning in from behind from behind to kiss him after a successful landing. Chewie growling some more or less gentle adjustments to Han’s well designed plan. If someone would have only known them from having shared a fligh or two, it would’ve been impossible to believe that they were friends. Things usually got rough in here, sometimes even outside the cockpit. But in the end, Chewie had always been the most trustworthy and loyal friend imagineable. Han hoped to have fulfilled a similar role in the Wookiee’s life.  
The first months after Chewie’s death had literally felt like hell. The loss of the one person that had been such a crucial part of almost all his life made him loose himself, too - not to mention that he’d almost lost his family trough that, too. Even six months afterwards, it had been hard to understand that he was really gone, once and for all, with no chance for a coming back, just a hollow ache in his heart that wasn’t layed down by the memorial ceremony either. For Han, the reactions of Chewie’s entire family had been unbelievable. The deep understanding - appreciation even, for death had appeared more than strange to him. Back then, he’d thought it would’ve been easier to handle all of that if they had the chance for a funeral.   
The universe had awfully shown him that it made no difference.  
Anakin’s funeral hadn’t made it easier to accept that he was surving his youngest son. Hadn’t made anything about his death easier to handle. The pain was different, too. The ache of grieving for Chewie had been a constant companion, never vanishing, never getting better or worse.  
The pain over loosing Anakin came in waves. He’d pushed his own grief back in order to be there for Leia, knowing that she suffered in a different way than he did, with the burden of having felt her own child die trough the Force.   
The first wave had come with Tarc, the boy who looked so awfully similar to a younger Anakin that it had cost Han all of his energy to not break down in tears when he looked into the kids eyes. And it had been surpressed with the new informations they got about Jacen, because Han’s mind had become occupied by nothing but the task to save his son with all means possible. In the moment he’d hugged Jacen for the first time after all of that mess, after believing for weeks he’d lost him, too, the grief for Anakin had almost been a distant memory, a nightmare easy to wake up from.  
It had taken a few weeks after that for the second wave to crush upon him, when he slowly realized that there would never be a reunion with Anakin. He’d never have the luck of hugging him again, he’d never get to hear his voice just one final time.  
Even a year afterwards the knowledge was hard to process. Some days it took him no effort to get up, to hold on to the good memories, to hold on to the fact that what Anakin did saved the lifes of not just his friends, including Jacen and Jaina, but probably those of all remaining Jedi.  
On other days, it took him a lot to keep his composure. Days were he believed if he just turned around quick enough, he’d catch the kid sparring with his lightsaber. He wouldn’t even be mad. He’d probably just sit down and watch, taking the time to appreciate how far he’d come already, from a young child that ran around with a wooden stick in his hand pretending to be the greatest Jedi in history, to a young man that might actually was the greatest Jedi in history.  
And on some more or less rare days, just like today, the pain was almost suffocating him.  
When he constantly wondered whether or not Anakin had been afraid in his final battle, whether or not he had to suffer... while he actually didn’t want to know the answer to that. There would be no coming back from that knowledge. So he kept pretending not to wonder about any of that, not to wonder if Anakin had forgiven him for what had happened between them ever since Sernpidal. Because no matter what Leia told him, there was no way of being sure about that. The only thing he could be sure about was that he would never entirely forgive himself for it. Not for allowing for a second that Anakin carried the blame for Chewie’s death on his shoulders. Not for allowing them to become so distant, enough for Han to be shocked about how less he actually still knew about him. Not for never telling him how proud he was for Anakin acting more like a grown-up than he probably ever had.  
 _Grown-up._   
It sounded wrong.  
He never got to be a real grown-up. Where had Han been, at seventeen? Nowhere near to anything worth. He didn’t have children back then, obviously, hadn’t met Leia, he hadn’t even met Chewie at that time. His life had barely started.   
For the past year, he’d done his best not to let his thoughts drift into that direction, but he couldn’t stop it from happening at this day.  
Anakin would never have the joy of holding children of his own, to feel his heart warm whenever he looked at their eyes. He’d never have the chance to marry the love of his life, his entire body warming with the thought that he got lucky enough to enjoy the rest of his life with such a wonderful person. The greatest joys of life would always remain a book with seven seals for him. All of that had been robbed in one awfully impossible instant.  
Han couldn’t stop the tears from falling anymore. He fumbled in the pocket of his jacket until he got the key out, a replica of the Falcon’s keys that had been intended to be a part of Anakin’s present after he’d made the awful mistake of making it more than clear to Anakin that he didn’t want to see him working or being in the cockpit anymore. Meant as a symbol for an honest apology that would’ve followed, one that Anakin would never get, because there hadn’t been the chance for a real apology before Anakin had left for Myrkr. No chance to finally build a bridge over the distance that had driven them apart from each other  
He stared at the keys for an awfully long minute, the sight just yet again making him aware what had kept him from sleeping tonight. He hadn’t forgotten the day. He never would, no matter how many years would pass.  
 _Happy eighteenth birthday, kid._


End file.
